Misty, David, Faith, and John at the BooKnack in Rock Hill, SC, during Faith and David’s signing.

I have just returned from what I billed as the Summer 2013 Thieves’ Quarry Signing Tour, which is a somewhat overblown and pompous way of saying that I spent the week doing signings across a small section of the Southeast. It was a great week — fun, exciting, exhausting, and ultimately, I think, pretty successful.

I signed in a variety of bookstores. Three were independents: Fountain Bookstore in Richmond, Virginia; The BooKnack in Faith and Misty’s home town of Rock Hill, South Carolina; and Malaprops Bookstore in Asheville, North Carolina. Another specialized in used books — Oakley’s Gently Used Books, on the pedestrian mall in Charlottesville, Virginia. And one was a Books-A-Million in Gastonia, North Carolina, just outside of Charlotte.

Each had something to recommend it. The three indies were marvelous places […]

This is going to be one of those short little “here’s where we all are, come visit” posts that I give you when the rest of my life explodes and I don’t have much writing advice to give. As a lot of you know, I’m a theatre guy as well as a writer. Tuesday night one of the leaders of the local theatre community passed away, and I’m still pretty upset about it, so I apologize for not having much advice for aspiring writers this week. I will give you one thing, though – if there’s someone who inspires you, let them know. One of the highlights of my career as a writer was meeting Mercedes Lackey at Dragon*Con two years ago and taking the opportunity to tell her how much her books changed my worldview and made me a different person than I was before I read them. I […]

Apologies for the late posting. I just got home after a mini book tour in Northern Michigan and have been playing various kinds of catch up. I’m also mired in grading and in working through line edits on Darwen III, but I wanted to tell you a little about the last few days because it was, well… just cool.

The multi-city book tour in which authors fly from place to place and are chauffeured from fancy hotel to book store and back just doesn’t make financial sense to most publishers. Sure, it’s a way to raise visibility, but unless you have the kind of profile which will guarantee hundreds (or thousands) of sales at each signing, it isn’t going to work, and I’ve heard countless tales of Huge Name Authors showing up at stores to find—for whatever reason—that no one has shown up.

I started to blog about how it hurts to see one bad review even if forty-‘leven other people have given your book raves. I decided I didn’t feel like being depressed about it, and I didn’t want people to think I was begging for sympathy. I erased that post.

I started another post about what I’ve learned from doing book signings, and realized I haven’t learned enough yet. Let me do some more, and then I’ll have something entertaining to say. That one’s gone.

So now here I am, the clock ticking on my day, and me without a decent topic. I’m opening the floor…what do YOU want to know? Ask one of us, ask us all. Play nicely, please. 😀

Wednesday afternoon, I went over to visit my friend Kim Harrison for a little advice. She’s a bestselling writer of urban fantasy and wise in the ways of self-promotion, and I knew she’d be able to help me out. My husband and I had been talking about giveaways for my upcoming book signings. He wanted to order a somewhat expensive item, printed with my promotional information, to give away. But the cost was so high that I started digging my heels in – it’s not that I don’t love everyone who’ll come and buy a book, but if it’s between presents for y’all and a mortgage payment, I guess you know who wins.

I trooped over to Kim’s house for tea and advice. She very graciously pulled out all her old and new promotional items for me to see, and we talked about cost benefits and do-it-yourself options. She shared […]